Life was good for Buckcherry bassist Jonathan “JB” Brightman as the millennium wound down. Largely on the strength of the hit single “Lit Up,” Buckcherry’s debut album (1999) had gone gold, and he was living the rock star dream shared by so many across the world. Then came album number 2, “Time Bomb” (2001). As it turned out, “bomb” was an appropriate word in the title—that is exactly what that record did. The subsequent tour led to JB’s departure from the band, along with the exits of guitarist Yogi Lonich and drummer Devon Glenn. It took some time for schedules to align, but now JB is back, teaming with singer Huck Johns in a new band called Black Robot. He even looked up his old pals Yogi and Devon to help him out in the studio. With their debut set for a June 8 release through Rocket Science Ventures, JB checked in with Live Metal’s Greg Maki to discuss Buckcherry, Black Robot and more.
LIVE METAL: Before we really get into Black Robot and the new album, I was thinking maybe you could kind of take me back in time about 10 years or so. The first Buckcherry album came out, was a big hit and then the second one, not so much. In your opinion, why do you think that was?
JONATHAN “JB” BRIGTHMAN: In my opinion, there was a dynamic that changed in the band as we were progressing. We started out as a band that was just good friends. We were ambitious and we wanted to get on a major label and everything, but at that point in time, the kind of rock that we were doing, it wasn’t very popular. We were kind of resigned to the idea that we would have to do it independently. But for some crazy reason, people would start showing up at our shows. We were in L.A., so we started seeing movie stars coming. One time, we played the Viper Room and there was a line around the block. When I showed up, I was like, “Who the hell is playing tonight?” People were there to see us. It was almost like a phenomenon that happened.
So we wound up getting a really huge record deal. I think it was the biggest one of that year; it was 1997. We got a lot of money, but that’s the money that you’re supposed to live on for a while. We started taking things step by step—doing small tours, then we got bigger tours. And things started happening to the band where we started getting noticed, and psychologically it kind of changed a couple of us. A couple of the guys in the band started getting a feeling in their heads that their value was higher than the other guys’ and started behaving in different ways.
Needless to say, we had a great run on the first record, and we had to make another record. At that point in time, our publisher had agreed to give us a massive amount of money upon delivering the second record. A couple of us, me not being one of them, they thought that they could write that whole record. So it got competitive with the writing. The way we made music before, we would just all contribute some music and whatever sounded good we would work on. It didn’t matter where it came from; we didn’t have any egos about it. But then while we were making the second record, the way we were making music changed. (Vocalist) Josh (Todd) and (guitarist) Keith (Nelson) were sneaking off into other rooms and writing music together without involving us, and a lot of the material was kind of forced on us, just because Keith wanted to write the music. And a lot of the music really sucked. We were using a producer, John Travis, who, quite honestly, he just didn’t have the balls to say that the music sucked.
So we made a record that just didn’t have it. In my opinion, there were good parts about the record and there were a couple of good songs. But the record label, they weren’t even fully endorsing it because they felt as if it wasn’t the best record we could’ve made.
So the three of you—you, Devon and Yogi—did you all leave at the same time?
No. What happened was, after we put the record out, I kind of saw the writing on the wall. You could listen to it and tell that it didn’t have a chance. It wasn’t as good of a record. So I kind of saw the writing on the wall, but I wanted to support the record. I was on the road for about a year, and I had no money. Basically, I made what you would make if you were working at McDonald’s. And that’s how much money I got on the second record. And so did a couple of us. Me and Devon and Yogi, we got peanuts.
So we had to try to work while we were on the road. That’s the only way we could’ve made money. We were hoping that we would make a little bit of money at the shows so we could survive. We toured and we weren’t making the money on the road. As soon as there was a profitable show or something, our singer Josh would get the sniffles and he would cancel these shows, or he would go and buy a wireless set for his earphones. So we weren’t able to be profitable. It cost us money to support this record, which we really didn’t think was that amazing.
I wound up doing this, and the point in time which I decided I needed to leave the band was, I was just taking a beating out there—not making any money, sleeping in a little bus, getting everybody’s colds. We would go into North Carolina, I would get the cold that would be in Charlotte. Then the next city, I’d be in Savannah, I’d get the Savannah flu.
As it turned out, we had a show in Canada. If you’ve ever had any trouble with the law, you will have trouble getting into Canada at the border because they check into the U.S. records to see. They don’t want to let criminals in. When I was a teenager, I got into a fight with a police officer and I got arrested. So they had to charge 220 bucks so that I could get through immigration so that I could play the show. And a couple of our roadies had the same issue. They had some little rub with the law. My tour manager came to me and said, “Well, listen, your singer wants you to pay your way across the border,” after all the roadies got in and the tour paid for them. So it made me realize that, quite honestly, I wasn’t being valued. So I said, “Fuck that,” and as soon as we got back into the U.S., I rented a car and I drove back home to L.A., and I left in the middle of the tour.
After you left, did you know what you were gonna do next?
No. I honestly couldn’t survive because I didn’t even have an apartment. I had all of my stuff in a storage unit. But I knew that I had to go back and get a job, quite honestly. I went back and I begged my old boss for my old job back, and he gave me my job back, and I started building my life again.
When, where and how did you meet Huck Johns?
We were on tour, on tour for that record, coincidentally, that flop of a record. We were on tour with Kid Rock, and the guys in his band said, “You have to listen to this singer, man. He’s incredible. His name is Huck Johns.” He actually did some work with Kenny Olson, who played with Kid Rock. I went to a party after the Iggy Pop show in Detroit, and me, Yogi, Devon and Huck wound up jamming together, and we started being friends. That’s how we met him.
When did you decide that he was someone that you wanted to work with on music and start a band?
I was kind of over Buckcherry, so right when I met him I thought, you know, I just really need to do something completely different, because I could see that that band was gonna implode. So when I met him, I was thinking I should just put a band together with him. He moved to L.A. in 2001, and me, him and Yogi, we wrote some songs and we jammed it, and it sounded really, really good. But Yogi started getting work; he was playing with The Wallflowers. We just started working on different projects, and we didn’t have the chance to pick it back up until 2008.
For Black Robot, what would be the big influences, and how would you describe the sound?
I think we just rely on our influences to make our music, and I think it’s pretty obvious when you listen to it that we love a lot of the stuff that came out of the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s—just rock ‘n’ roll. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we’re just trying to keep it rolling.
The name, Black Robot, really jumps out at you. Is there a story behind that name?
I had the name for a while. I had the vision. I wanted to do a band that was kind of the way bands used to be creative and they would have a mascot or something, and you’d see this figure appear on each record. It was just something that I had come up with, kind of like the Eddie character. We’re kind of hoping that if the band starts taking off that we can continue using that character. That’s our story with that.
Your producer on this album, Dave Cobb, I’m familiar with him through his work with Shooter Jennings. How did you get hooked up with him, and what was he like to work with?
I got the Shooter Jennings record “Electric Rodeo,” and I thought, man, this is like the best record I’ve ever heard, and I decided that I needed to work with him. I described to him exactly the record that I wanted to make, and I played him some of our songs that we had. He’s an insane guitar player—he’s like Jimmy Page—so we got him to play a little guitar with us and Yogi. It was an incredible experience. We were writing three or four songs a day together. It’s a huge difference compared to all the other producers I’ve ever worked with. I think he’s gonna probably one day be one of the bigger producers out there.
I read about how you recorded the album using a lot of vintage equipment. Whose idea was that, what do you think that added to it, and when you say “vintage,” how old are we talking?
We used microphones dating back to the turn of the century, some of those old ribbon microphones maybe from the early 1900s all the way to the ‘50s. Some amplifiers we used were from the ‘40s and the ‘50s. We just wanted to make the record exactly how all these great records were made that we loved and we all grew up on. We used some Pro Tools and some tape, and we just did everything live. All the music that you hear is all of us in a live room, jamming the songs out. You hear the mistakes, and you hear the bleed from the other instruments in it if you listen closely, but we think that’s part of the charm.
I want to ask you about some of the songs. The first song kind of hits you hard coming out, “Baddass.” Is that like a statement song from the band?
I would say so. I think we wanted to come out with some attitude. It’s kind of a tongue-in-cheek song. If you listen to the lyrics, it’s really about someone who’s so arrogant and so cocky that he’s calling himself baddass. It’s always fun to sing along and say that you’re baddass.
My two favorite songs on the album, first, “23 Days of Night.” It’s got that Black Sabbath-type groove to it. Is that what you were going for on that?
Yeah, 100 percent, man.
My other favorite is the last song, “Nervous Breakdown,” which is really a lot different from the others. Where did that come from, that soul type of feel to it?
We just jammed it out. It wasn’t even a thought-up thing. We were kind of shooting to make something filthy, and that’s kind of where we landed with that song.
Another you’re probably getting asked about is the cover of “Cocaine.” How did that come about?
That was completely accidental. We had the music for the song, and we were deciding, what are we gonna write it about? We were just goofing around with it, and it sounded really good. The way our singer Huck works is that we’ll make the music, and he’ll come up with some temporary lyrics before we all get a chance to work on the lyrics together. He put those in as placeholder lyrics, and when we revisited the song and were ready to track the vocals, we were like, “You know what? Let’s just keep it. It sounds great.”
This band has definitely been a true indie effort. What has been the biggest challenge in getting it up off the ground?
I gotta tell ya, I have to thank Buckcherry for their help with this record. They recently got popular again, and their popularity increased my royalties. So I started getting checks in the mailbox, and I thought, what I should do with this money is I should finance some more music. I think after you’ve been through the big label thing, you don’t really want to deal with another big label again because they’re such a pain in the ass. So one of the big challenges is, of course, affording it and doing it right. If you cut corners, people are gonna hear it. Our goal is to try to make an independent record that is every bit as good as a major label record but at just a fraction of the cost. I think we’ve achieved that, but it takes a lot of financial sacrifices.
Are there plans for a full U.S. coast-to-coast tour?
We’re gonna take some small bites out of it. Right now, we’re booking a tour through Texas in May. We’re gonna go there and go out to the certain areas that happen to be playing the song. Then after that, we’re gonna go and do a series of mini tours. We’re talking to a couple of bands that are considering us for an opening slot for their tour. Once things are set in stone, it’ll be available on our Facebook and MySpace and Twitter and everything.
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